


Devil's Divergance

by Kikaromi



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Tales of Xillia
Genre: Gen, Julius Will Kresnik (Mentioned), Protagonist/Role Swap AU, The rest of you might not get this madness, but I hope you all enjoy it anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 20:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6723154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kikaromi/pseuds/Kikaromi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Going after a Fractured Dimension as usual, Ludger instead finds himself wrapped up in a world that truly defines the phrase "Survival of the Fittest." <br/>Devil Survivor AU where Ludger unintentionally replaces the DeSu protagonist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's Divergance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. Here comes the (long awaited for some) unholy mashup AU I made.   
> All I can say is I hope you all enjoy this insane ride.

The noise is deafening. His ears rang as the whiplash going from the stone cold silence of the Void to the buzz of upwards of a thousand voices engaged in their own conversations flooded his senses. Where was this…?

Given the tall buildings and sheer number of patrons walking about from various walkways, he definitely landed in a city, most likely an intersection. No one brushing past him even bothered to check if he’d been alright (apparently the travel here was violent enough to cause him to faint, thus he’d woke up on the ground and hadn’t gotten around to standing up yet), although Ludger preferred it this way. If he stood out too much, he could kiss his slim chances of finding the catalyst goodbye and this dimension would be the closest thing to ‘home’ he’d get.

On the thought of catalysts… where to even _start_? Ludger regained his footing and whipped his head around to scan the area more thoroughly. Absolutely **nothing** looked or felt familiar to him. Normally his entry points into dimensions were at least places connected to Rieze Maxia or Elympios, and the scenery debunked any theory he might scrounge up to determine which it would be.

The technology suggested Elympios, but there was visible vegetation _everywhere._ There were fountains, trees, large patches of grass… unless this dimension happened to be Elympios several decades into the future, his homeland could not possibly support this much plant life in a single area (or even in general).

_Where should I go…? If I go exploring, I don’t trust my chances to find my way back to this spot. But I can’t sit here and pray for another Corpse Shell user to appear either._ Ludger sighed heavily, giving up this mental debate for the moment to find some shade and a place to sit. There he’d at least look more natural than standing in the middle of a walkway, fidgeting with his hands and desperately searching for something he wouldn’t find.

* * *

                                                                                                

By some miracle the nearest café he found took his gald as payment despite giving him his price in ‘yen’ if he remembered the word correctly. Ludger ordered a small cup of ice cream and four water bottles to tide him over for the day and the days to come should his search span multiple days (which even he could admit was almost a guarantee by now). Just eating one spoonful made the man realize just how hot he was thanks to both the weather and his anxiety setting his body to overheat itself.

The millions of thoughts on a constant loop distracted him from realizing he’d been scooping at air for the past minute, earning him stares from someone at the table in front of him. _Don’t say anything. You’ll just embarrass yourself._ Ludger listened to the one logical thought he had and left the café and stored his water bottles in the weapons case he started carrying around nowadays. Carrying guns, swords, and a sledgehammer in plain sight might send trigger alarm bells from the average person.

Best thing to do? Wander around. And wander he did for what felt like an eternity and a half.

Ludger checked his pocket watch several times to see if time passed; spirits know if the watch kept an accurate time when traversing another dimension at a different time of day. If the pocket watch’s time _did_ accurately synch up, it was a couple minutes till 4 PM, or 16:00.  Fat load of good it did him regardless: it never occurred to him to check the time before this point.

“…I’m completely lost.” Ludger lamented, just about ready to lie down on the ground and cry, disregarding the attention it’d draw to him. Well if he was to do that, best to find a place where the chances of being stepped on were less severe—

“Heeey, Rudoga!”

….‘Rudoga’? Was that supposed to be his name? Besides having the same number of letters at his name, ‘Ludger’ and ‘Rudoga’ shared no real similarities… He was probably overthinking it; whoever shouted that wasn’t addressing him, plain and simple. Ludger didn’t spare the voice a glance and kept walking.

“Come on, LuLu! At least _pretend_ to be listening to me!” The voice, belonging to a teenage boy based on the sound, suddenly reached his ears much louder than before. Dare he say, the origin had to practically be right next to him to be so clear in such a large crowd. “You know Naoya wouldn’t ask you to meet him in Shibuya if he only wanted to see you!”

Ludger couldn’t keep ignoring whoever was trying to speak to him forever, so he did turn around to face this person. His new acquaintance stood at the same height as him, although he could tell the boy talking had to be younger than him by a couple years. The way he was smiling at him brought up way too many questions to process all at once. This was their first time meeting each other, but yet the boy spoke to him in the same manner one would carry themselves around a good friend.

“…How do you know who I am?” He blurted out the first question off his tongue. The faster his questions went by, the quicker he could understand what was going on.

“You sure didn’t make it easy for me to recognize you, that’s for sure. Last time I saw you, you were still wearing those headphones Naoya bought you back in middle school. Now you’re not even wearing them and you’ve gone through a complete makeover! It wasn’t a _bad_ makeover if you’re worried about that.”

That hadn’t answered his question, but the boy namedropping someone else he also never met did support his theory of he mistook him for someone else… or did he? Maybe this dimension’s divergence stemmed back centuries in the past, radically altering the world around him and his placement in it. Besides paying this ‘Naoya’ a visit later, there was one way to test his theory…

“Do you know my full name?”

“What, did you expect me to forget your _name_ over summer vacation? I admire your faith in me, LuLu.” The boy’s shoulders slumped temporarily as he feigned his hurt feelings. He perked up after a brief pause. “Your name’s Ludger Will Kresnik. Am I right, ye of little faith?”

…There’s no denying it, this kid definitely knew him somehow. “Y-Yes…  You were right, sir. ”

As though he were possessed by a laughing bug, the boy burst out laughing to the point he nearly fell over. Ludger did reach out an arm to steady him so his spine wouldn’t introduce itself to the ground, not that he seemed to notice. “ _‘Sir’_? Luds, if you’re trying to pretend to be someone else, at least pick something **_better_** to call me.” His laughing subsided, replaced with him extending an open hand towards Ludger. “But I’ll play along. I’m Atsuro Kihara, your cousin’s number one apprentice. It’s nice to ‘meet’ you, Ludger.”

Ludger stared down Atsuro’s hand to see if its owner had any malicious plans behind the gesture. When nothing happened, he bit the bullet and grasped Atsuro’s hand and shook it lightly. This whole situation still struck him as strange, but it felt a bit less awkward knowing the name of whoever he’d been talking to for the past few minutes. Atsuro acted friendly enough as well, so he didn’t feel the urge to bolt in the other direction and blend in with the crowd to escape.

“U-Um… Atsuro, then. You mentioned something about a man named Naoya earlier wanting to meet us? If he was planning to keep his word, shouldn’t he be here by now…?” Checking his pocket watch again, he and Atsuro spent a solid ten minutes in their convoluted conversation. If they were both called here in advance, it made sense to expect the other party to be here by now, late or not. “Do you think he canceled or he’s sick and couldn’t make it?”

“Now that you mention it…” Atsuro scanned the immediate area, apparently not finding the person they’d been waiting for. “If Naoya knows he’ll be late or he can’t make it, he normally gives me a heads up. And he only set this up a couple days ago so I can’t see how Naoya’d forget about his own plans already…”

From how Atsuro described Naoya, it didn’t sound in character for him to leave those he arranged to meet hanging indefinitely. What could be wrong with him?

“Oh, _there_ you guys are!” This time, a girl called out to him (and Atsuro). When she came into view, Atsuro’s eyes lit up for some reason. Was she one of Atsuro’s other good friends?

“Hey there Yoohoo, what’s up? Did you get lonely without me and Rudoga?” Atsuro continued to smile, but the girl’s happy disposition melted into cold disappointment. For his own safety, Ludger took a tiny step back while she wasn’t looking directly at him.

“DON’T call me ‘Yoohoo!’ My name is YuZU! You know I hate that nickname, stupid Otakuro!” Yoohoo, or Yuzu, Ludger wasn’t sure what was the truth, complained, pulling down Atsuro’s white beanie over his eyes as punishment. “Hey Rudoga… you dyed your hair. What made you decide to do that?”

Ludger snapped back to attention when his hair became the object of the conversation. Technically, the girl wasn’t wrong—his hair was naturally silver, but a section of his bangs were dyed black by himself. He could remember Julius’ reaction like it was yesterday: ‘you’re starting your rebellious phase, Ludger’. His brother made no sense.

“Um…. I always had people calling me weird o-or old thanks to my hair being silver. So I thought people might stop complaining if I dyed part of it—” A plan that failed what he intended to do, but the man grew attached to his new hairstyle after a couple weeks so he just kept it as is. Controversially, he thought he looked cooler this way.

“…huh. Well I think your hair’s nicer this way.” Yuzu (or Yoohoo) complimented his hair, earning her a faint blush sprouting on Ludger’s cheeks.  “Oh, but I almost forgot! Naoya told me to do something for him.” She reached down into her bag and pulled out three devices Ludger couldn’t recognize. Atsuro, who escaped the confines of his hat by now, seemed to recognize them so it might be an item exclusive to this world. This world was already **full** of those. “Aren’t these those Communication Players that came out this summer?”

“That’s exactly right, Yoohoo—” Yuzu caught that and bonked Atsuro on the head with her fist before he even finished that thought. “D’ow! At least let me finish before you start whacking me! ……Anyway, Communication Players is a real mouthful, so everyone just calls them COMPs. They’re game systems, but they have e-mail and browsers so they’re almost like cellphones.” Game systems…? Best not to question everything, or they’d be stuck here all day. “Did Naoya give you these, Yu _zu_?”

“Yeah. Naoya said _‘You’ll all need these. Don’t let go of them’._ He also told me to tell you guys that he had to cancel his plans. Something unexpected came up, and he couldn’t make it.”   

Ludger could scratch meeting Naoya off the list of things that might explain what was going on around him. Atsuro was equally disappointed, albeit for a different reason. “Awh, what’s up with **that?** I hit a snag with my coding, and I was hoping he’d help. Guess I’ll have to ask him tomorrow.” He perked up soon enough, swiping one of the COMPs from Yuzu’s hands and switching it on. When the screens powered on, his brows knitted at the sight.

“Weird, this the first time I’ve seen this GUI… Did he program these himself…?” He fiddled with a couple buttons on the COMP itself, earning him some angry beeps from the COMP’s speakers. “There’s even some encrypted files on these… Ah, _now_ I see what he wants me to do!”

Atsuro produced a laptop from his messenger bag, removing the chords wrapped around his arm and connecting one end to the laptop and the other to a port on the COMP. Ludger thought to say something, though Yuzu beat him to it, “Naoya made these COMPs by himself, huh? Isn’t making your own COMPs difficult?”

“For any ordinary programmer, it’d take months to build their own COMPs. For Naoya, he could program these in his sleep; Naoya’s the closest thing to a celebrity in the world of coding.” Atsuro promoted Naoya’s skills with a straight face. “And as his Number One Apprentice, it’s my job to trump his protection schemes and crack these folders wide open!” The entire time he explained his intentions, Atsuro couldn’t contain his excitement. Yuzu didn’t appear too amused by the sight, turning away and grabbing Ludger’s hand as she did.

“Well _you_ can have fun with that, Atsuro. _Rudoga and I_ are gonna go shopping!” Ludger let out squeaks and whines of protest at his sort of kidnapping. Yuzu either had no idea how to interpret them or she simply ignored them as her grip neither let go nor loosened. “When your eyeballs explode from staring at your screen too long, don’t come crying to us!”

* * *

 

Yuzu guided Ludger to what he deduced was a shopping district. Others around them had shopping bags hanging from their arms or their handles in their fingers, the number of bags per group varying from one to nine. He never seen people try to juggle so many bags, but absolutely nobody but himself was even looking at those who were carrying the upper limit of bags.

_This place is so much different than Trigleph… At least Yuzu and Atsuro seem to be doing their best to take care of me._ The male glanced up at the sky; unlike everything else around him, it remained recognizable. Were the stars and constellations similar too? That might be something to keep him occupied tonight. He had nothing _else_ to do besides hunt for clues on what could be the catalyst, if there was one.

“The stores here are, like, really fashionable you know?” Yuzu suddenly spoke, derailing Ludger’s train of thought. Thankfully his body showed no outward trace of such. “I used to shop in Harujuku, but now I buy all my clothes in Omotesando. Did you buy your new clothes in Omotesando, Rudoga?”

If he were in a less tense situation, Ludger would laugh at that. These clothes were as new as his GHS, and his GHS was the older model that allowed you to flip the screen horizontally. Sadly, he couldn’t think of a way to explain how his clothes were old without sounding completely insane.

“Um… These were a-a gift!” Good enough, he could roll with that angle. “One of my friends got my suspenders and tie clip custom-made, so he picked an outfit that he thought matched. I got them around the same time I dyed my hair, now that I think about it.” The last part wasn’t a lie—the day he dyed his bangs also happened to be the day he went out to change his wardrobe. What he wore now became his favorite outfit very quickly.

Yuzu giggled at his explanation, giving his suspenders a little tug. “A friend had someone make this for you? Maybe I should call this friend of yours and see if he could hook me up!” Her eyes were already on something else by the time Ludger could process her compliment. The items in question happened to be the pouches both strapped on his left leg and towards the right side of his back, with the latter standing out thanks to the yellow feathers with orange tips attached to it. “What about those feathers hanging off your back pouch? Who made that?”

“U-Um… M-Me….” Ludger twiddled his fingers, face bright red as he stared down at his shoes. “I-I made it. I thought i-it’d look cool, so I found some white feathers, dyed them, and p-put them on a keychain so I could wear it…” Making tiny charms like his feather accessory had been a hobby he picked up when he finished the chores around the house early. The feathers were what he considered his ‘masterpiece’, so he wore it all the time.

“You made this all by yourself? I never knew you were the kind of guy for arts and crafts, Rudoga.” Giving the feathers a quick scan, Yuzu let them fall back into place as her smile twisted into slight deviousness. “But I do think it’s cute. You should make me one too so we can match…. And I guess you could make Atsuro one too so he doesn’t whine about being left out--” 

Sirens cut through their conversation as two… (Wagons? Carts?) things with lights flashing on top zipped past _far_ faster than anything he’s seen before. Everyone on both sides of the street stared as the…things went by; wherever they were going, they were definitely in a rush to get there.

“H-Hey, Rudoga…? Um…” Yuzu timidly piped up when the sirens weren’t drowning out all the sounds around them, her face _much_ paler than before. Did watching those things go by worry her? “I-Isn’t Naoya’s apartment that way…? Do you think we should… check on him? J-Just in case?”

**_Naoya…_** Atsuro and Yuzu kept mentioning him in manners that suggested he meant something to them. Since they weren’t doing anything of importance currently, Ludger nodded and followed the path the screeching items on wheels with Yuzu in tow.

Lucky for them the trail to where the siren-wielding head-turners headed towards hadn’t been too convoluted to follow despite them lagging far behind. Their trip lead them to an apartment building, currently blocked off with yellow tape and the residents (along with regular pedestrians who were drawn to the peculiar scene) standing outside murmuring to each other. One glace at Yuzu and he _knew_ this had to be Naoya’s apartment complex.

“N-No…” His female companion shielded her face as she turned away, horrified of all the ‘what if’s that might have happened to Naoya. Ludger patted her back gently to comfort her, and it did seem to slow down her shallow breathing.

“Rudoga… Do you think he’s…?”

If he was, then there went both someone close to the two faces he knew and his chance of finding out what Naoya ‘knew’ about him. For their sake, he wouldn’t believe it. Naoya couldn’t have died, he must be somewhere outside the building!

“No, I’m sure he’s fine.” Ludger assured her in a soothing voice. “You met him right before you found Atsuro and me, right? We weren’t wandering around the clothing stores _that_ long—he couldn’t have been home by the time this happened.”

His words lifted Yuzu’s spirits enough where she returned her hands to her side then nodded to agree with his explanation. It felt pretty good to know he could help her feel better, no matter how big or small his impact. Normally when he got involved, the situation was reversed and his friends ran themselves ragged in a futile hope to put down his anxiety. Being on the other side meant a lot.

The police on the scene shooed the onlookers away from the entrance when more of then breached the complex. A few officers were patrolling the outside and taking a head count of those known to live the building, and Ludger _swore_ he heard them say Naoya’s name. No doubt about it, Naoya survived.

\--But that raised the question. Where _was_ Naoya?

“I’m surprised to see you, Ludger.” Snapping his attention to whoever spoke, Ludger’s eyes met an older man wearing what had to be a custom-made haori and traditional wooden sandals. Weren’t the sandals uncomfortable to him? Maybe not if he chose to wear them. “You brought a friend with you as well. What are you doing here?”

“Naoya!” Yuzu shoved him aside to step close to their missing man. “We were _so_ worried about you! When we watched those police cars go by, we thought you might’ve been hurt!”

“Worried?” Naoya pondered her response, as if he couldn’t guess she meant the obvious incident not even a couple yards from them. “…Oh, you mean the incident in the building.”…He seriously needed to think over his priorities. Nobody on the planet would dismiss a scene so close to their home as a minor inconvenience.

Yuzu must have been on the same wavelength as him, giving Naoya a stern talking to, “Of course that’s what we meant! Just what happened in there anyway!?”

Sparing a glance back, Naoya put his explanation on pause until he compiled the events in his mind. For a moment he also snagged a look at Ludger, although if you blinked you’d have missed it. “A person in the building was eaten by animal, or so the police say. He was a high school student, like yourselves. His apartment was right next door to mine.”

**Eaten?** A student got _eaten_? Ludger could deem Naoya’s statement valid if they were, say, living near the Alest Highroad, where monsters could maybe sneak in the home and find food monsters considered easy pickings. But this was in the middle of a huge city! No way could a monster that had the strength to eat a living human being sneak past an entire city’s worth of civilians.

Both he and Yuzu were rendered speechless. Knowing someone died already served as a bitter pill to swallow, but knowing the student got devoured by who knows what? And, since the police couldn’t find a trace of the killer, knowing this very same thing could be out there, hunting for its next meal? How was _anyone_ supposed to take such news lightly?

Naoya managed. Not once did he switch from the disinterested demeanor when addressing the incident or describing what happened in detail. If Yuzu was shocked, these types of incidents couldn’t be a common occurrence….

“Naoya…? C-Can I ask you something?” Naoya let out a hum to signal he could go on. “You don’t seem shocked this happened at all. If I knew someone living close to me died, I’d be more worried than you are right now. Is there a reason you’re so calm?”

His question served to amuse his supposed cousin, a quiet chuckle leaving his lips. Ludger thought it might be wise to ask again, though Naoya held up a hand to silence him. “Your thought process never ceases to amaze me, cousin. Do you suspect I had a hand in what happened with the student?”

“No, I-I didn’t mean it that way. It’s… something about this scares me.” Ludger’s arms wrapped around himself to sedate this anxiety that wouldn’t go away. This ‘animal attack’ would be the first of many strange occurrences to come—that’s the feeling he got. And from how Naoya lacked a reasonable reaction, what his premonition predicted must have some idea of the coming danger.

“A normal animal isn’t smart enough to sneak in undetected and make an untraceable getaway, nor would I believe someone managed to smuggle an animal of that size this deep in a city with _nobody_ seeing them. Something more deadly killed him, and I fe—no, I **know** there has to be more of them. And that same feeling is telling me you have some idea of what the thing that killed him is.”

“Rudoga, what are you **_saying_**?” Yuzu’s shrill voice snapped Ludger out of his introspection. He almost forgot she was here. “Why are you accusing him? You said it yourself, Naoya couldn’t have made it to his apartment by the time we got here! Why would Naoya know about something he didn’t _see_?”

She had a point. Naoya’s detachment when describing the events still rubbed him the wrong way, but unless Naoya rushed over to his apartment the second after he met Yuzu, he wouldn’t have been in the complex. And say Naoya reached his apartment after the animal attack, the police wouldn’t allow a civilian to observe a crime scene and potentially tamper or remove any evidence.

“I-I… Um…”

No matter how hard he thought about it, Yuzu’s logic trumped him thanks to his own words. And yet, that wasn’t enough to shake those feelings away. It strengthened them if anything.

Regardless, he knew he should apologize.

“I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have accused you based on a gut feeling. Something just doesn’t… sit right with me.” Noticing his words _might_ sound like he’s accusing Naoya all over again, Ludger rapidly waved his arms to swat away any assumptions. “A-And I don’t mean you specifically, Naoya! It’s… My stomach’s twisting and this **fear** inside’s warning me we’re about to face something deadly like the ‘animal’ on the loose…!”

Continuing on intensified the fear squeezing his heart. His body convulsed into shivers, tears streaming down now-colorless cheeks and hands gripping his shirt so tightly it was a wonder he didn’t ruin the stitching. “And if I’m right, people are going to die! I-I don’t want that to happen! So if you know _anything_ , I want you to tell me! Please!”

Once he vocalized his premonitions, Ludger resumed his basic functionality. Neither of the people he was speaking to said a word—Yuzu twiddled her thumbs and kept her gaze elsewhere and Naoya… Naoya’s eyelids narrowed, one hand acting as a perch for his chin; he was thinking. By the way he completely tuned out the world, whatever warranted this introspection _must_ be both enigmatic and almost incomprehensible for even him.

“….Ludger. Come here.” Naoya ordered, moving somewhere close to the side where no prying eyes could see them.

Ludger obliged him, telling Yuzu to wait there while he listened to what his ‘cousin’ had to say. Once they were alone, the older man placed both hands on the younger’s shoulders, keeping him rooted as Naoya studied him. He remained silent throughout the process, focusing intently on what he desperately hoped to find. Their closeness caused Ludger’s cheeks to turn rosy, which Naoya ignored entirely.

Over and over Naoya kept examining him, more than likely having trouble finding this key detail he couldn’t find. Eventually he stopped, mumbling something to himself at a volume too quiet for Ludger to pick up. Once he finished, a wry smile disarmed the built-up tension between them.

“You’ve changed. You barely resemble the cousin I left all those years ago.”

If Ludger expected anything, it certainly wasn’t _that._ “U-Um… Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot today. Even Atsuro and Yuzu have been telling me how I’m so much different than I was back before summer vacation.”

Naoya let out a small ‘hmph’, then beckoned him to return to Yuzu’s side so he could address the both of them. “I understand why the two of you came here. But our meeting here was an accident—we shouldn’t be talking like this.” He turned away, giving one last piece of advice before heading off. “Hurry and find Atsuro immediately. It’s going to begin soon, and you mustn’t turn away. You must be ready to stand against it, **for the sake of your survival**.”

“Oh…! W-Wait, Naoya--!” Yuzu called out to the older man. Naoya ignored her and continued to walk away, disappearing into an alleyway. “There he goes…”

“Does he always act like that?” Ludger asked. Naoya’s words were puzzling to say the least, and he gave off this vibe of abnormality. If this wasn’t his normal behavior though, he could comprehend this better.

Yuzu shook her head with a frown, “Not really… Something didn’t seem right with him. I wish we could know why.”

Right on beat, Ludger’s cellphone began to ring, its owner and Yuzu jumping at the sudden noise. Ludger internally regretted keeping his ringtone that loud and reached for his GHS in his back pouch. The caller ID displayed “Atsuro”, which rose all sorts of questions. For the sake of not being rude, he answered the call and heard Atsuro brimming with enthusiasm on the other end.

“Yo! I figured out how to crack the encryption on those COMPs!” That didn’t take long at all. “I need yours and Yuzu’s so I can unlock them. Meet me in front of the Electric Museum in Shibuya! See ya soon, RuRu!” And just like that, the call ended.

“Um… Why don’t we meet up with Atsuro? I’m all confused from everything that’s happened… Maybe Atsuro figured something out on his end!”

With Naoya refusing to give them answers, the COMPs were the next best thing. Atsuro did say they were like cellphones too, so maybe he could contact Naoya too…. somehow. “Alright, lead the way. I… d-don’t actually know where the Electric Museum is…” Yuzu’s look was one of pure disbelief, but she went along with his request anyway.

_Why do I feel so uneasy about this…?_


End file.
